Video games are not responsible for the mass killing in Tucson, Ariz. a week ago. But the suspect's deranged ramblings in an online game's forums put them in the spotlight. Gamers have, justifiably, long mistrusted their portrayal in these stories.

Electronic Arts' CEO described a nail-biting 150-hour finish for NBA Elite 11, and the choice he made to cancel the game outright. "There aren't many decisions that are essentially squarely on my desk," John Riccitiello told Kotaku. "This was one."

The calm before the annual storm. It was the last normal week before the holiday shopping season begins and the mass media enforces your civic duty to agonize over what to buy mom, and whether Walmart sold enough of it.

Kinect arrived, bringing a means of controlling games by grasping at thin air. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could change how games are sold, even made. It was a week that carried the scent of history.

This week? It was enough to make anyone consider throwing in the towel, packed to the gills with even more BlizzCon 2010 coverage, a week's worth of love for PC gaming and a flood of reviews and previews.

BlizzCon 2010 kicked off this week, with Mike Fahey on the scene, and the top man at the Entertainment Software Association laid the case for striking down California's anti-video game law, which goes to the Supreme Court in 10 days.

Surprise. Gran Turismo 5 is delayed again. That may not be news in the ironic sense, but it is in terms of what folks were talking about at the beauty parlor and feed store, if gamers gathered in such places.